With the Battle Fleet: Cruise of the Sixteen Battleships of the United States Atlantic Fleet from Hampton Roads to the Golden Gate, December, 1907-May, 1908Matthews, Franklin
History
With the Battle Fleet: Cruise of the Sixteen Battleships of the United States Atlantic Fleet from Hampton Roads to the Golden Gate, December, 1907-May, 1908
Matthews, Franklin
United States. Navy. Atlantic Fleet -- Cruise, 1907-1909
You learned that there are three daily newspapers here, each giving
cable news. Indeed, we heard of the assassination of King Carlos here as
quickly as the rest of the civilized world. You were even surprised to
find that there is one tri-weekly newspaper in English and you get a
copy and read the list of guests at Mr. Braun's reception, quite up to
date with the society news. You learned that Punta Arenas had been
connected with the rest of the world since December, 1902, when the
overland telegraph was put through to Buenos Ayres. You learned that
there was gold in all the hills near by; that four dredges were engaged
in mining over in Fireland, as they call Tierra del Fuego here, and one
in a gulch just back of the town. Some progress has been made with this
mining and there are Americans and men from the Transvaal engaged in the
industry. A lot of money has been put into it, but the expense of
getting the gold is still too high to make the proposition attractive to
the general public and so one need not look for a gold rush here for
some time. You learned that there was copper mining in many places, but
that the difficulty in getting transportation by water from the remote
places high up the mountains where such mines are is such as to eat up
most of the profits. You learned that about 60 per cent. of the
population is foreign, ranking as follows as to numbers: Austrian,
German, French, English, Spanish, Scandinavian and American.
The prosperity of the town you then realized depended upon sheep and
furs, chiefly sheep. You found four immense ranching companies doing
business here and you got the annual report of the largest one, the
Exploration Society of Tierra del Fuego. It has 1,200,000 shares, owned
mostly by Valparaiso and Santiago people, but Punta Arenas has 140,000
shares, of which Mr. Braun owns 62,000. This company owns 1,200,000
acres of land and its wool clip is nearly 6,000,000 pounds. Last year it
had 900,000 sheep, 14,000 cattle and 8,000 horses on its property. Its
capital is $6,000,000 and last year it paid nearly 15 per cent. in
dividends. It has its property divided into five big ranches. Altogether
its real estate holdings are as big as the State of Delaware and nearly
one-half as large as the State of Connecticut. That isn't very large
compared with the entire territory of Tierra del Fuego, because that
land is as big as the State of New York, but it is pretty big doings as
sheep ranches go. Australia and Argentina can make a slightly better
showing in the production of wool, but, as the Punta Arenas people say,
this country is still young in the business.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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